


Regret

by st_mick



Series: Niffler [35]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Gwen finally asking useful questions, Jack makes a promise, Memories and realizations, The team finally sees what they'd spent months missing, Time to do better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 15:43:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: The team looks into Ianto's records and the hub's CCTV to see what they might have missed.  (Hint: They missed a helluva lot.)  As realization sets in, so does regret.





	Regret

When they returned to the hub, Jack pulled Gwen and Tosh into the conference room. Owen had made it clear that he did not think it appropriate to share much of what had transpired at Ianto’s flat. After all, Ianto was his patient, now.

To his credit, Jack tried to be discreet. “Ianto’s injuries are more extensive than we realized. Owen will be checking in on him regularly.” He hesitated before forging ahead. “And I’m… concerned by how he was behaving, when we were there. Owen and I are going to get him some groceries and go back and put cameras in the flat.”

Tosh was brushing away silent tears as the penny dropped, for Gwen. “Suicide watch, Jack?” She looked at him. “But if the protocol calls for… well, why not just leave him to it?” 

“Let him take care of our dirty work for us, you mean?” Jack asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“Well, he normally does,” Tosh sniffled, and Jack flinched.

Gwen realized that execution must not be part of the plan, despite Owen’s earlier declarations. Now that she’d got used to the idea, she wasn’t sure how she felt about Ianto surviving his treachery. “Okay, why not just bring him back here, then?” she huffed.

Jack was stunned at her callous disregard for the pain of her teammate. But given how ugly everything got – especially his own words and actions – and her own shock, he was willing to make allowances for the misunderstanding. “To be clear. Ianto is serving a four-week suspension, after which he will return, and we will make him a proper member of this team. I don’t think the place where he lost his girlfriend, surrounded by those who actually killed her, will be the best environment for him to properly grieve.”

Gwen frowned. “So now we care?” Her expression turned stubborn at the anger she noticed around the table. “Oh, come on. I’m going to need a program to follow along, at this point. At best, you all went out of your way to disregard him. When I first got here, I asked Owen why no one talked to Ianto, and he said Ianto wasn’t to be trusted, because he came from One.” She shrugged. “Guess he was right. I figured I wouldn’t be trusted, either, if I tried to befriend him, and that it was best to go along with everyone else. He really did just kind of disappear, after that,” she mused.

Jack rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly tired. “Christ, he was right, wasn’t he?” he asked, looking at Owen.

Owen nodded, looking ashamed.

“Well, it ends here,” Jack resolved. “Owen, I want you to start looking after the remaining survivors of Canary Wharf. Physicals, psych evaluations, everything. Work with Ianto when he gets back, since clearly he’s already been watching over them. We’re not losing any more.”

“What do you mean, Jack?” Tosh looked confused.

“There are only seventeen left, now,” Jack replied, his voice quiet.

“What?” she looked startled.

“Eight fucking suicides in four months, while we sat here congratulating ourselves for being so superior,” Owen spat.

“Oh, no,” Tosh said, tears brightening her eyes.

“Owen, I also want you and Tosh to go through the CCTV footage. See if you can see…” he hesitated. “I don’t know. What we may have missed, maybe?”

Tosh and Owen nodded, understanding what Jack was asking.

“Tosh, please get me access to Ianto’s financials, emails, anything you can get your hands on. I want to pull together as complete a picture of how this all unfolded as I can get.”

“On it,” she nodded. 

He reached into his pocket. “Also,” he hesitated, turning the jump drive over in his hands. “He says she was still herself, until Tanizaki got her off of the respirator. These are brain scans.” He sighed. “I guess if we want the whole picture…”

“I’ll look through them with Owen,” she said, reaching out and taking the drive.

“What if it’s a virus, or something dangerous?” Gwen asked. When the others stared at her, she went on, “Well, we did just kill his girlfriend.”

“There are protocols,” Tosh replied crisply. “I assure you I follow them, no matter the source of outside media.”

Gwen nodded, satisfied.

Jack sighed and went on. “Gwen, set up a rota. We need to monitor him around the clock, until he’s got his feet under him, again. I’ll take the overnights. Let Tosh and Owen take the bulk, so you’re free for retrievals and anything that may come up.” He didn’t want to add that with her attitude, he wasn’t certain he could trust her to watch over their archivist as diligently as he deserved.

Gwen seemed to realize that she had lost some ground during the discussion. She didn’t really understand – hadn’t Ianto betrayed them? Hadn’t they been right, that he would? She hoped Jack could explain it to her. “Jack,” she began, her tone inquiring. But before she could frame a question or try to make up lost ground, Owen spoke up, looking thoughtful.

“You know, I always wondered why he was in such good shape, about the whole thing.”

“What do you mean?” Tosh asked.

“Well, he showed up here, not even a month after the battle, and except for some bumps and bruises that were still healing, you would’ve thought he’d had off work that day, for all the trauma he showed.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I couldn’t figure it out. I even tried sneaking up on him. Couldn’t even get a sign of an overactive startle response.”

“You snuck up on him, to try to startle him, to see if he was suffering from PTSD,” Tosh looked disgusted.

“No, I noticed he wasn’t showing any signs of PTSD, and I tried to confirm it,” Owen clarified.

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. He seemed particularly well adjusted, other than that one wobble.”

Owen scoffed. “That wasn’t a wobble, Jack. That was completely justified anger over a truly offensive remark.”

Jack scrubbed a hand over his face, again. It had been Gwen’s first case, with Carys and the sex gas. Gwen had heard Carys crying and laid into them. “You’ve been hidden down here too long. Spending so much time with the alien stuff, you’ve lost what it means to be human.”

“So remind us,” Jack had said earnestly, getting cozy and feeling like they were having a moment. He was trying to get her onside, but it had been a miscalculation. “Tell me what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.”

“All right,” she had said.

“No,” a low voice declared, behind them. “No. That’s not right. You can’t say that.”

Ianto stood there with the tray of coffees. His hands were shaking so badly he stepped to the desk and put the tray down to avoid dropping them entirely. He looked… shocked. Not angry. Not in that moment. In that moment, he simply looked appalled. 

“You haven’t seen people’s humanity torn from them like a cancer being excised from their bodies,” he said, speaking to Gwen.

“What?” Gwen asked, confused.

“Ianto,” Jack was shocked at how Ianto had taken Gwen’s comment. Owen and Tosh had not appreciated it either, he could tell. Now they were staring at Ianto with concern. It was the first time he had even come close to alluding to the battle.

“You haven’t seen almost every last one of your coworkers exterminated, or deleted, or _converted_,” he spat. “So maybe you don’t realize just what a horrible thing that is, to say.” 

Gwen stared at him, wide-eyed, as he turned to Jack. “But you should, Sir.”

“You’re right, Ianto. That was thoughtless of me.” Jack was speaking in a low voice, trying to placate his youngest employee. Ianto was eerily calm, but Jack wasn’t certain how long that would last. He wondered if this would be the thing to finally get a reaction from the unflappable young man.

Ianto nodded. He reached for Jack’s and Gwen’s mugs, and poured the coffee into the water at the foot of the tower. “Toshiko and Owen are good people. You shouldn’t allow anyone to say such things about them.”

“I don’t under…” Gwen began, but Jack spoke over her.

“I’m sorry, Ianto,” Jack said, wondering if it would be decaf, or no coffee at all, for a while. He watched his empty mug being set back on the tray, feeling a pang of regret.

Ianto nodded again. He took his mug and turned to go, then stopped, his entire body completely tense. Shaking, he poured his own coffee into the pool before hurling the mug against the tower with surprising force, causing it to shatter rather spectacularly. He stared at the place where it had impacted for a few moments, taking several deep breaths. Then he shot his cuffs and straightened his tie. “I’ll be in the archives, if anyone needs anything,” he said, his voice even. 

Once he was out of sight, Owen and Tosh grabbed their coffee and got to work as Jack explained to Gwen about Canary Wharf. Later, he had sought out the younger man, to apologize, but had once again been surprised when he’d been the one to receive an apology, instead.

Thinking back, it now occurred to Jack that he had not really considered the whole interaction as thoroughly as he should have. He had not noticed how Ianto defended Owen and Tosh, making up for their offense by leaving their coffee for them. He had not noticed how Ianto had not included himself in that defense – apparently, only Tosh and Owen were good people who didn’t deserve to have their humanity questioned. And tellingly, the only thing damaged had been Ianto’s own mug.

“That was another missed opportunity, I think,” Jack said, turning away from the memory.

Owen nodded and continued his thought. “At first I thought maybe he’d had combat experience, of some kind, something that had inured him to it, helped him cope. But then I saw his file, and there was nothing of that sort in his background, other than maybe those scars. Now…” he shook his head. “Now it’s clear that the event wasn’t just that day, for him.”

“What do you mean?” Gwen asked.

“I mean, the ‘P’ in PTSD stands for ‘post’. He wasn’t symptomatic, because he was still in the middle of it all. His trauma was a four month long event that only just ended yesterday.”

“Gods,” Jack muttered. “All right, get to work. Owen, I’ll grab the cameras, and we can leave in thirty.”

Owen nodded and pulled his chair closer to Tosh’s as she ran through the protocols and pulled up the data from the jump drive. His heart sank as he looked at it all. When Jack called for him a half hour later, he had seen enough to confirm what Ianto had told them. Lisa Hallett had been successfully fighting the cyber-tech.

“How can that be?” Jack asked as they drove.

“No idea. It looks like there were times when she’d weaken, and then there would be something that sort of bolstered her, and she’d be stronger for a while. Can’t figure it out.”

When they returned to Ianto’s, both men were carrying bags of groceries, since his cupboards and refrigerator were bare. Shopping had been a challenge, as they had both realized that they had no idea what Ianto might like. They had never noticed his preferences, since he was always the one to order their meals. When they called the hub, Gwen had been no help, but Toshiko had at least observed some apparent partialities, when he bothered to eat. After that, they simply chose things that were fresh and healthy and would be easy to prepare.

Owen was surprised but relieved to see Ianto sleeping soundly. Once he looked him over, he helped Jack to put cameras in every room of the flat. He’d been shaken by Ianto’s despair. He had always vaguely disliked the kid, who seemed like an old butler in a young man’s body. It had been creepy and unnatural, but now he was beginning to see it for what it was.

***

The next morning Toshiko arrived a bit before eight to find Jack sitting at her workstation. Four monitors were now dedicated to Ianto’s flat – three for the kitchen, living room, and bedroom, and the fourth on a motion capture for the spare bedroom/office and the bathroom. The other two monitors held Ianto’s email account and financial records.

“Did he sleep?” she asked.

“All night,” Jack replied. “It’s strange – I would have expected nightmares.”

“Small favors, right?” She looked over his shoulder. “Find anything?”

Jack ran a hand over his face. “Pretty much everything,” he said quietly.

She pulled up a chair. “Tell me.”

The cog wheel door opened with an alarm, and Owen strolled in. “How is he?”

“Slept all night.”

“Really?” Owen shrugged. “Well, he needs it. Imagine he was well past exhausted.” He peered at the bedroom camera and saw for himself that Ianto was sleeping heavily.

“So what did you find?” Tosh asked, bringing Jack back to their conversation.

“Tanizaki was a charlatan, for one. Tried to bilk Ianto – when Ianto offered him a fair price, if you consider three hundred and fifty thousand pounds fair, Tanizaki told him that he knew Canary Wharf survivors got a million pounds, each.”

“Bastard,” Owen snarled.

“Ianto’s reply said that was true, but medical equipment and morphine weren’t cheap.” Jack tapped the screen with the financial information. “He only had four hundred thousand left.”

“Cutting it fine.”

“Tanizaki told him he could cure her.”

“Filthy, lying wanker!” Owen spat.

“His science was good,” Tosh observed, reading quickly through the email thread. She had also read through most of Tanizaki’s published articles. “I see why Ianto believed him.”

“C’mon. The kid believed him because he wanted to,” Owen said.

“I don’t disagree. But between the articles and the emails, I can see where he was able to muster hope. Tanizaki’s science and know-how can be strung together in a sort of web of plausibility that would have been difficult to resist.”

“Well, karma’s a bitch, is all I can say,” Owen snarked. “Bastard shouldn’t have lied to the kid.”

“Any of that lot would likely have said anything to get that close to the technology. It’s literally light-years ahead of anything that’s been developed, here on Earth,” Jack said thoughtfully. He sighed. “He really believed he could save her.”

“The data points to the fact that she was definitely still herself,” Owen said. “It’s a bloody Greek tragedy – she was fighting the good fight, and along comes that bastard, saying he could reverse the damage. No wonder the Tea Boy fought so hard.”

Jack nodded. “After you sedated him yesterday, he said she was terminally ill, and couldn’t be saved. He just hadn’t realized it.”

“Pretty hard to, when someone is feeding you false hope,” Tosh said. “Poor Ianto.”

Owen looked over their shoulders at the financial information. “So he spent all of the T1 hush money?”

Jack winced at the snark, but nodded. “Almost. He has a decent nest egg saved up, but I have no doubt he would have dug into that and spent every last penny, to try to save her.”

“Naïve, delusional, stupid, or heroic?” Owen muttered.

“Traumatized and clinging to whatever would keep him afloat,” Jack answered.

“What will keep him afloat, now?” Tosh asked quietly.

Jack squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Go grab some kip,” Owen clapped Jack on the back. “We’ll watch over Tea Boy and start digging through the CCTV.”

***

By ten, and Owen and Tosh had gone through the CCTV footage that Tosh hadn’t already scrubbed the evening before, as Jack and Owen installed the cameras. What they had compiled was damning, to all involved. Ianto had not even attempted to conceal his activities. So while there was plenty of evidence against him, it was also obvious that no one had noticed what he hadn’t bothered to hide.

“He looks so unwell,” Tosh said quietly, watching a bit from the week before. “How did we not notice how pale and thin he’d gotten?” That was another thing. Ianto had been fairly trim and fit when he joined Three, but watching the months pass on CCTV made it clear he had dropped at least twenty pounds that his frame really ought not to be doing without.

Owen winced. As a doctor, it pained him to realize that he had completely missed the evidence of suffering that had been right in front of him, every day for the last four months. He had one image still pulled up on one of the monitors. Ianto had come up from the archives one day, his steps purposeful as he approached Jack’s office. But then his steps faltered. He turned, running a hand through his hair, considering.

Owen was willing to bet every penny he had that Ianto had been about to ask for help, but then lost his nerve. He cast one last, desperate look back towards Jack’s office before retreating. The look was haunted, and haunting. His skin showed an unhealthy pallor, and dark circles stained the skin beneath his eyes. The eyes themselves showed pain, panic, fear, and the desperation of a man pushed past his endurance. 

Owen almost welcomed the distraction as Toshiko hissed, having gotten to the footage of the evening all hell broke loose. He leaned towards her monitor and watched as Ianto watched their basketball game, an outsider within the hub. Once the game was decided, they all grabbed their stuff and headed for the bar. Jack threw the ball at Ianto as they filed past him without a word.

“I’ve heard that neglect is worse than abuse, because at least abuse is attention,” Tosh said, her voice heavy with emotion.

Jack put a hand on each of their shoulders, watching from behind them. “We’ll make this right.”

“How can we?” Tosh cried.

“It’s all here, Jack,” Owen said tiredly. “He didn’t even try to hide anything. We just… didn’t notice.”

“I know,” Jack said, swearing once more that he would find a way to make this right.

***


End file.
